Acorn & BBC User Group (ABug) NORTH 22 Nov HALIFAX

[sydney]

Hi all.
Following on from the 'North of England Beeb User Group' thread I'm pleased to announce the first 'BBC Micro & Acorn User Group NORTH' meetup! We dropped the "Beeb" and replaced it with 'BBC & Acorn' as it's not just for Beebs, I'm sure there will be Atoms, elks and Archies there too!

After discussing the possibilities with Dave we have booked the conference room that was used for August's hackfest at the Premier Inn Halifax South - http://www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/HALPTI/halifax-south
We have the room from 8am - 10pm on Saturday the 22nd of November.

We're looking for £12 per attendee to contribute to the cost of the conference room and hire of additional tables (Arcadian and I will cover any shortfall) and if there's any cash leftover it'll go towards soft drinks/snacks for the weekend or possibly booking the room for Sunday morning if there is interest. That's in addition to your own individual cost of a hotel room for one or two nights if you want to stay.

The meeting will be pretty informal and freeform though I do plan to have a few game challenges on the go as well as giving the latest homebrew games from Tricky and hopefully myself a thourough playtest. Dave also mentioned bringing some blank tapes and a cassette duplicator with him to maybe get a small production line set up for RetroSoftware releases! Dave will be hiring 10 tables so there should be room for a lot of interesting things to be done so please let me know in this thread if you will be bringing something or if there is something in particular you'd like to see.

There are limited spaces available so please post in this thread and send me a direct PM/email to check availability and have your name added to the list.


Update: One person has pulled out so there is a space up for grabs if you want it.

CONFIRMED:

1. sydney (Simon) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Sunday
2. Arcadian (Dave) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Sunday afternoon
3. samwise (Peter) PAID Arriving Friday night, leaving Sunday afternoon
4. IanS (Ian) PAID Arriving Friday evening
5. netnorth (Gary) PAID Arriving Friday evening
6. sPhilMainwaring (Phil) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Saturday evening
7. daveejhitchins (Dave) PAID Arriving Friday evening
8. leenew (Lee) PAID Arriving Saturday morning, leaving Saturday evening
9. flaxcottage (John) PAID Arriving Saturday morning, leaving Saturday night
10. danielj (Daniel) PAID Arriving Saturday morning, leaving Sunday
11. CMcDougall (Colin) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Sunday
12. Prime (Phill) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Sunday
13. Dave Footitt PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Saturday late afternoon/evening
14. retroclinic (Mark) PAID Arriving Saturday morning, leaving Saturday evening
15. hiddenevil (James) Arriving Saturday morning and leaving Saturday evening.
16. BeebMaster (Ian) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Saturday evening
17. jgharston (Jonathan) PAID
18. flynnjs (Jason) PAID Arriving Friday evening, leaving Saturday evening
19. Mark Hardisty
20. Free

WAITING/RESERVE LIST:

• -

FRIDAY NIGHT CURRY (9pm @ "Ziggys" in Halifax Town Centre):

Arcadian (Dave), Samwise (Peter), IanS, netnorth (Gary), sPhilMainwaring (Phil), CMcDougall (Colin), Sydney (Simon), Prime (Phill), Dave Footitt, Dave Hitchins, AlanD, BeebMaster (Ian), flynnjs (Jason) ... any more?

[flaxcottage]

Sounds great.

As Halifax is not too far away I shall drive up on the Saturday morning and get there about 8-ish. I hope to be bringing up some Beeb/Electron gear and I'll have a laptop with the Educational archive if anyone wants an up to date copy.

If anyone wants an Econet then let me know and I can bring one along - it is only a few crates!

[danielj]

John, I've got some econetty machines too that I can bring along. Let's econet the place up...

d.

[flaxcottage]

John, I've got some econetty machines too that I can bring along. Let's econet the place up...

d.

Sounds like a plan.

[sydney]

Dave warned me this would happen!

[Prime]

Right I should be there Friday night and going home on Sunday morning...same as for the hackfest, so should be there for the Friday Curry and whatever we decide for Saturday.....

I can bring Atom(s) / Beeb(s) / Electron(s) / Master(s) all except the Elk have Econet...yep even the Atom

I do have an A5000 with an econet interface, it would be good to get that configured as a fileserver (I think it has 4MB, but does IIRC need a new cmos battery). I tried setting up L3 on my Master + Co-pro a couple of times and could not get it to work correctly

Cheers.

Phill.

[danielj]

Dave warned me this would happen!

You love it

d.

[Dave Footitt]

Count me in

[Arcadian]

^^ woohoo!

Are you coming for the Friday night curry as well, Dave? I checked about an hour ago, and Premier Inn /still/ have at least 4 £29 rooms available on the Friday night, despite a couple of our members booking more rooms today.

[danielj]

Right, I'll be along Saturday AM bright and early, leaving Sunday!

d.

[Dave Footitt]

I couldn't get in to that Premier Inn for both Fri & Sat so I'm in two minds what to do

Do people typically stay until 10pm? Don't want to book the night there to find out I'm sat on my own in a dark room with a BBC come 9pm

Daniel could you possibly bring your kryoflux? Ive got a few old discs I wouldn't mind having a look at with the help of experts

Cheers

[Arcadian]

At the Hackfest, some of us were still in there tinkering around at 1am on the Saturday!

What was the issue with the Premier Inn site? Surely it wasn't reporting no vacancies on the Saturday, no?

[Dave Footitt]

Seemed to be a room on Friday, but not Saturday

Bear in mind I'm after a family room...

[danielj]

Dave, of course I'll bring it along. Standard kit

You're right, don't seem to be any family rooms at that hotel that night.

[Dave Footitt]

OK what I've done is just booked the Friday, that way I can make the curry and have a few beers.

Can't stay over on the Saturday night (mainly due to there being no rooms haha), but should be able to hang around until 5 or so.

Looking forward to it

[Arcadian]

Just tried the mobile site, it would let me book a family room for two nights for 2 Adults, 1 Child but not 2 Adults, 2 Children - assume that's what the problem was?

[daveejhitchins]

I was planning to arrive on the Saturday Morning, however, managed to nab one of the £29 rooms for Friday Now waiting for the Saturday night rooms to come down

Not sure what I'm bringing, as yet - Full Elk system, probably . . . Maybe do some work on the Mega Games Cartridge Menu program . . . So, I'll needs lots of questions answered

Dave H

[Arcadian]

Ok, looks like they're down to their last 3 x £29 rooms on the Friday night now, so I'd advise anyone else thinking of travelling up on the Friday to get their room booked asap!

(Dave H: are you up for the Friday Curry?)

[daveejhitchins]

(Dave H: are you up for the Friday Curry?)

Oh yes. . . .

Dave H

[Dave Footitt]

Just tried the mobile site, it would let me book a family room for two nights for 2 Adults, 1 Child but not 2 Adults, 2 Children - assume that's what the problem was?

Yeah - 2 adults, 2 kids. If I come over Friday I can make the curry. To be honest could do with being back for Sunday anyway, but I can definitely make Saturday from about 9am-5pm, by which time most people should be fed up of me

[sydney]

I'm bringing:

1 BBC Model B - with SD card with sth collection on it.
The right cursor key is broken so if I can locate the correct key switch I'll probably fix it in Halifax.
1 Master 128 - with SD card with sth collection on it.
2 LCD screens
Soldering Iron
Crate full of electronics bits
Slogger plus 2 - not working - free to whoever wants it!
Laptop
Wii nunchuck - I've been toying with the idea of getting one connected to the analogue port.
PS2 Mice mentioned by Danielj to hopefully connect up to my master.

[AlanD]

Hello all

Count me in I have booked my room

ATB

Aland

[sydney]

Hello all

Count me in I have booked my room

ATB

Aland

That's Great!

When are you staying, the Friday, Saturday or both? Are you up for the curry too?

Retroclinic has also confirmed his place via pm, only 5 left!

[AlanD]

Hello Sydney

I will arrive Friday early evening so count me in for the curry
I have to leave Saturday evening


Aland

[leenew]

Hi all,
I can only make this on the Saturday
I cannot get Friday night off unfortunately.
I will arrive as early as possible, and stay as late as possible but cannot stay over as I am working on the Sunday too

Lee.

[Arcadian]

Great to see more people confirming their attendance at the inaugural meeting of the BBC Micro & Acorn User Group - Northern Division!

Thanks to everyone who's transferred payment ... the attendee status on the first post (including Friday Night Curry) should now be up-to-date (Mark H ... if you're reading, will you be joining us for the curry, too?).

If there's anyone sitting on the fence, time to hop off it as there are just FIVE places left now!! (RETRTOKID, JGHARSTON ... is it looking likely that you'll be able to commit yet?).

In terms of bedrooms, all of the £29 Friday rooms appear to have been booked (price is now showing as £54 for the Friday) however I booked an extra room on the Friday before the rate went up - just in case anybody ended up needing it. Please send me a PM if you'd like to take it off my hands! It's currently a twin, so in theory you could share with another forum member and pay just £14.50 each (though I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to exchange it for a double if required).

[daveejhitchins]

If there's anyone sitting on the fence, time to hop off it as there are just FIVE places left now!! (RETRTOKID, JGHARSTON ... is it looking likely that you'll be able to commit yet?).

Are we getting JG an alarm clock . . .

Dave H

[Dave Footitt]

re we getting JG an alarm clock . . .

A nice mini Model B with a choice of Byte The Apple tunes?

[jgharston]

If there's anyone sitting on the fence, time to hop off it as there are just FIVE places left now!! (RETRTOKID, JGHARSTON ... is it looking likely that you'll be able to commit yet?).

I'm planning on coming up for the Saturday.

Will there be anybody there who can image an old 20M SCSI hard drive from a Torch HD System?

[CMcDougall]

I can bring Atom(s)

going to bring mine too, maybe we could leave them in a secluded room together with sexy music on, and they can breed like rabbits

also :
Electron with Plus1, Plus3, UPURS, SuperMMC & game carts
Beeb with 80k sideways ram and 50p SuperMMC
Master Compact with SuperMMC
Laptop winXP so can get 5volt from USB and read/writes 31/2" DFS/ADFS discs perfectly
Flat screen 16"+ telly with scart / AV in
Cables, other useful adaptors and bits.

ow, nearly forgot, lots of toilet paper for after the curry.......